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NANYUKI, Kenya — Princeton University graduate student Tyler Coverdale and Ryan O'Connell of the Class of 2017 clap as they walk around the tall bushes surrounding the sprawling experiment site. Not in applause, or for self-motivation — but to alert any buffalo, elephants or other animals that...

The Trump administration may well continue to trash climate science in the months ahead, thereby damaging science, the reputation of the United States, and the planet. Nonpartisan alliances, in which scientists join tough-minded captains of industry, military officers, and others, could provide the...

Posted by John Sullivan, Office of Engineering Communications on Nov 17, 2016

Across the United States, abandoned oil and gas wells are a significant source of greenhouse gases, particularly methane. Yet there are so many scattered across the country that stopping the leaks — and even determining which wells are leaking — presents an enormous challenge.
Now, scientists...

Improving coastal resiliency, and the adoption of natural infrastructure as part of a multiple lines of defense strategy, relies on effective coastal flood hazards and risk assessment and risk management. Current flood hazards maps do not adequately consider geomorphological, physical and...

Peter Singer, Ira W. Decamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values
Most of us accept that suffering is an intrinsically bad thing, even if it may sometimes lead to good consequences. That judgment is, I suspect, much more widely accepted than the judgment that...

Posted by Catherine Zandonella, Office of the Dean for Research on Nov 02, 2016

The mutually beneficial relationship between algae and modern corals — which provides algae with shelter, gives coral reefs their colors and supplies both organisms with nutrients — began more than 210 million years ago, according to a new study by an international team of scientists including...

MUMBAI, India — About 300 million children in the world breathe highly toxic air, the United Nations Children’s Fund said in a report on Monday that used satellite imagery to illustrate the magnitude of the problem.
The vast majority of these children, about 220 million, live in South Asia, in...

NANYUKI, Kenya — The small airplane bobbed and tilted in the midday heat rising off the Kenyan bushland as it quickly dropped onto the short red-dirt airstrip. Zebras grazed in the runway's grassy margins alongside gazelles and hulking, spear-horned oryx. Elephants milled about the dense trees and...

Tiny valves on the surfaces of leaves, called stomates, regulate carbon gain and water loss by plants, and are thus linchpins of the global carbon and water cycles. Amazingly, the same simple model regulates stomates worldwide. This model is backed by enormous empirical data and a 40-year-old...

Posted by Chris Emery for the Office of Engineering Communications on Oct 10, 2016

In the wake of historic destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, residents of New York and other coastal cities were left wondering whether Sandy-scale storm floods are the new normal.
Now, researchers from Princeton and Rutgers universities and the Woods Hole Oceanographic...

When Ben Sorkin put on his racing suit and helmet, he knew the moment he waited over two years for had finally come. His teammates helped strap him into the driver's seat. For the first time, he would be energizing their electric car for its very first run around a race track.
Sorkin, a ...

Last Friday, September 30th, eighty-four (84) Princeton undergraduates gathered at the Campus Club to present findings from their summer 2016 internships and service experiences.
This Summer of Learning Symposium provides students the opportunity to present their research findings on...

Princeton University researchers have compiled 30 years of data to construct the first ice core-based record of atmospheric oxygen concentrations spanning the past 800,000 years, according to a paper published today in the journalScience.
The record shows that atmospheric oxygen has...

Posted by Michael Hotchkiss, Office of Communications, and B. Rose Kelly, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs on Sep 21, 2016

Issues related to the environment and climate change will demand the new president's attention soon after he or she takes office Jan. 20 and throughout the next four years.
In the second part of a Q&A series on challenges that will face the new president, Princeton University researchers...

NANYUKI, Kenya — For 30 long minutes, the two safari buses trundled across the dry bushland of northern Kenya. Rocks and a haze of red dust kicked up from the rough and pitted road. The sun seared through the cloudless sky and thin air of the high escarpment, illuminating the leaves and long...

The Princeton Environmental Institute has awarded a $433,500 to support three additional research projects as part of the Climate and Energy Challenge.
Climate and Energy Challenge research projects tackle challenges in climate dynamics, the impacts of global change on the Earth's ecosystems,...

After years of environmental destruction, China has spent billions of dollars on the world's largest reforestation program, converting a combined area nearly the size of New York and Pennsylvania back to forest.
The government-backed effort, known as the Grain-for-Green Program, has...

The Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) is pleased to announce that Alan C. Braddock has been co-appointed by PEI and the Department of Art and Archaeology as the 2016 Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and the Humanities.
Braddock is the Ralph H. Wark...

Posted by Melissa Policicchio for the Princeton Environmental Institute on Aug 31, 2016

In 1941, Albert Alexander, an off-duty Oxford policeman, became the first critically ill patient to receive antibiotic treatment, starting a global trend of antibiotics being used for everything from treating infection to promoting agriculture. Enthusiastic and untampered use has come at a cost,...